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  - FLORIAN LOOKING TO GET BACK TO THE TOP
Friday, July 13, 2007 - by Mitch Gobetz - MMAWeekly.com
Kenny Florian went into his fight last Saturday night not quite sure when he was fighting. Typically, swing bouts end up happening right before the main event. Things obviously didn’t work out the way the UFC thought it would as the first three fights including the lightweight title bout went to decision. This forced the swing bout to follow the main event middleweight title shot between Anderson Silva vs. Nate Marquardt.
Kenny Florian declared to MMAWeekly his displeasure with being a swing bout. “I don’t wanna be a swing bout ever again,” Florian said. “I was sitting there, I was ready from 6:00 on. I was warming up for a good three hours. I could be anywhere from the second fight of the night to the last fight of the night which I was.”
“It was a tough situation, but I’m glad it turned out the way it did. I was ready to go on at any time.”
Florian disposed of Alvin ‘Kid’ Robinson on Saturday night with an impressive first round stoppage. Robinson came out aggressive and even rocked Florian briefly. “He got me a little bit. He hit me on the chin. It was kind of a little shock for like a half a second. I was fine. My mind was clear in a half a second.”
Even after that ‘half second’, Robinson took Florian down with an impressive arm throw. This self-admittedly surprised Florian. “I usually see him shooting free-style type takedowns. He mostly attacks the legs for takedowns, so I was surprised he got me with the arm throw. I’ve been training wrestling pretty hard since the Sherk fight. We really expected him to come out hard. We expected to for the takedown right away.”
Once the fight hit the ground after a very nice hip throw from Florian, Kenny’s jiu-jitsu took over the fight. “I’m pretty confident with my jiu-jitsu now,” explained Florian. “Now that my back is healthy. I was pretty confident my jiu-jitsu skills would match up with him. I was really ready.”
After Ken-Flo passed Robinson’s guard and moved on to full mount, Florian unleashed some brutal ground and pound. After hitting Robinson with some very hard elbows and punches, Robinson tapped out to the hard strikes. “I really wanted to keep the pressure on him. I hit him with some really hard shots from the mount. Then I hit him with some punches.”
Some of the comments made in the post fight interview with Joe Rogan seemed to ignite some controversy. Florian made a comment along the lines of how he goes out to finish fights. Some fans took it as a dig against Sean Sherk’s performance against Hermes Franca. Ken-Flo assured MMAWeekly that was not the case. “It’s always been my mentality to finish a fight. I don’t wanna fight to a decision. I’ve finished a lot of my fights. I wanted the fans to realize and appreciate that I try to finish it. Nobody wants to see a fight decided by three judges. It wasn’t a shot at Sherk at all. Franca’s a tough guy to finish. It wasn’t to disrespect to any fighters.”
With Florian’s impressive victory, many wonder what’s next for him. He has fought impressively his last two fights against Dokonjunasuke Mishima and against Robinson. Kenny believes it’s time to move on to bigger guys. “I want to fight the big names. I wanna fight the best guys. I don’t know what kind of fighters the UFC has for me right now. I have three more fights on my contract. I don’t know exactly what they wanna do. We’ll see. I hope to be fighting for the title sometime next year. I just wanna stay busy.”
Florian is looking to fight back on the east coast again this year. The two events being held toward the east coast is the October UFC card in Cincinnati and the November card in New Jersey. Florian shed some insight on his next fight location. “I hope to fight on the east coast some time this year. I’ll probably fight on the November card. That’s what it looks like.”
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